Biba’s Newest Cookbook
Here in the Sacramento, California area, Biba Caggiano is a queen. She is the well-respected author of eight Italian cookbooks and operates the Biba restaurant in Midtown Sacramento. This restaurant is a Sacramento institution.
A trip to Biba’s restaurant means a possible sighting of the Govenator and a definite sighting of several members of the state legislature. Gourmet magazine gave it this accolade: “The highest compliment I can give Biba is that when we dined there, shortly after returning from Italy, we thought we had never come home.” So, when Biba has a new cookbook coming out, it makes our local newspaper (free subscription required).
Her eighth cookbook, which will release in September, is tentatively titled “Biba’s Italy: Favorite Recipes From the Splendid Cities.” The Sacramento Bee lets us in on the inside dish by telling us that “[t]he subtitle is subject to change; Biba prefers ‘Recipes From Italy’s Splendid Cities.’” The release of this cookbook also coincides with the 20-year anniversary of her Sacramento restaurant.
According to Biba, the new cookbook was inspired by questions from her customers. Guests were constantly asking her where they should eat when visiting Italy:
It’s not a ‘best of’ list, but a book of my favorite places — restaurants, wine bars, where you should go to shop,” Caggiano says. “It’s a very personal book. It has my voice. The introduction to each chapter is like I am talking to you, saying, ‘Come with me, check this out.’”
It will be a bit of a travelogue but with an emphasis on restaurants, and recipes — 125 of them.
The five cities are Bologna, Florence, Venice, Milan and Rome. Her husband, Dr. Vincent Caggiano, writes of the wines most closely identified with each of the five
Now, this may be one of the only moments in your life that you wished you lived in Sacramento (all the better for me, I don’t want more traffic here): Biba plans on celebrating her 20th Anniversary in Sacramento by “planning something ’silly’ — a supplemental menu that features the dishes she opened with, at prices she charged in 1986. ‘I will go broke,’ she says with a laugh.”
My boss gave me a gift certificate to Biba after he made me work on my first wedding anniversary. The food was so good that my husband and I forgave him.
